Over the past
few years bands like The Strokes and The Hives and The White Stripes
have helped to usher in a resurgence in popularity of the "garage
rock" sound. This resurgence has undoubtedly been a violent
reaction by some of us in the music listenening community who
simply said "enough!" to the unrelentless onslaught
of pop fluff that had taken over the airwaves in the late 90s
and early 2000's. Still, there's been this overwhelming feeling
that this neo-70s rock revival has been a bit too over-the-top,
and this has led to a feeling that the revival has been a bit
staged. The Strokes are too pretty, The Hives are too gimmicky...
but that could also just be the result of the marketing machine
that's attached it's parasitic self to the acts.

Regardless,
one things that all these acts have been missing is the rawness
and fun that usually goes hand-in-hand with rock of this
genre. This is where Cato Salsa Experience comes in. Hailing from
Norway (yes, like The Hives), the band's debut album with Emperor
Norton Records does have this edge. It's a 60's-styled
garage rock freakout. It's The Monkees on acid. It's irreverent
guitar/keyboard rock, and it'll make you dance until your pants
come off.

A Good
Tip for a Good Time finds its highlights with the churning
gogo dance pollutions of "So the Circus is Back in Town,"
and "Time to Freak Out!" Where the album's biggest weaknesses
lie, however, is when the band sways away from its mood of drunken
dance debauchery; . when they try to craft an honest-to-goodness
song (i.e. "I Can Give You Anything").

Cato Salsa
Experience aren't crafting the world's greatest rock songs, and
they're not trying to. A Good Tip for a Good Time is,
rather, an honest-to-goodness garage freakout with little care
for being anything else.

They sound
like a good beer should taste: kind on the palate but easy enough
to get drunk to. There's
a reason you don't drink Champagne every night.16-Jan-2003
5:17 PM